


Unwanted in the Panic Room

by ResetButton



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Author knows nothing of contract negotiations, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood, Company party, Contract Negotiations, Dark, Darkfic, Dominant Kylo Ren, F/M, Masturbation, POV Rey (Star Wars), Rape Fantasy, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rey asks Ben to act out her rape fantasy, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Slapping, forced pleasure, it goes badly, laywers, pillow humping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:55:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27847258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ResetButton/pseuds/ResetButton
Summary: I reach out and touch my reflection, wondering at what point I lost myself. Was it years ago? Alone in bed with my own despicable fantasies? Or was it tonight? The moment I gave the shadowed thoughts my own voice and whispered them in his ear?“I want you to force me.”It matters little, either way.He’s made sure there is none of me left.___Rey’s colleague, Ben, never gives her what she asks for in contract negotiations. The night of their company’s annual gala, he finally does, and she realizes how terrible it can be.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 12
Kudos: 83





	Unwanted in the Panic Room

**Author's Note:**

> Oh dear. I just finished reading “Rebecca” and got sucked into the narrator’s can’t-trust-my-own-mind vibe. Pandora keeps playing “Welcome to the Panic Room” by Au/Ra and I suppose this fic is what happened when the two met.
> 
> WARNING: This is a dark fic. DARK. Please read the tags. Sexual fantasies are complex and Rey struggles with desires towards her coworker, Ben. Rey asks Ben to act out her consensual non-consent fantasy, and it goes badly. No safe words are established, no limits understood, and Rey doesn’t have a way to tap out. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about lawyers, LLCs, contract negotiations, health payer coverages, or fancy parties.

*

In the Panic Room he never gives me what I ask for. Not without exacting a price - not without making me sacrifice _something_. Which is the point, really, of a room dedicated to the very bitter end of contract negotiations. Only until the strike is due at midnight, until the threat of elective surgical cancellations, until literal thousands of lives losing potential health coverage benefits, do we end up here, staring each other down from opposite ends of a table. 

But today I can already tell he’s not going to let me win.

Looking at the two of us, one would never guess we make the same amount of money. Of course, Ben isn’t burdened by student loans, nor overdue rent payments with healthy interest to Plutt. No, born into a literal lawyer dynasty LLC, Ben’s starting point was set right behind the finish line, where mine was a mile back. Maybe two. I’m still crawling my way there.

His too-large hands twirl some expensive pen between his fingers. I think mine was a handout during the employee benefits fair. Rolling his neck in an impression of boredom, I steal a jealous glance at his perfectly fitted suit and hope he doesn’t see the staples holding the hem of my skirt up in a last stand against gravity. 

None of this matters, but as general counsel to my client (neither of the actual impacted parties are ever present - they’re miles away), I feel the need to posture up, at least a little to _him_. 

“Scavenger.”

“Kylo Ren.”

His Panic Room name is silly. They’re all silly, but his is some homage to a ruthless war god of a long forgotten religion. Silly, but deadly accurate. 

In the two years we’ve sat across from one another I’ve never won against him without him tearing away his share. I cannot negotiate what I want against him - I’m always nipping at pieces. Probably why he named me Scavenger. Hux (Panic Room name Fire Bastard) once suggested they call me Lone as the single non-profit rep, but that one rankled and made me think of the parents I barely knew. I should have taken it then, before Ben gifted me a worse one. 

_Scavenger,_ he calls me. His voice is too much for this room. I feel as though there is not enough room left for me when he speaks. His shoulders are too broad. His legs are too long under the table. His hands are too large.

Which is why they’re perfect.

“29%.” Kylo Ren announces, ignoring my folio of prepared documents. He always does. 

“45%.” I tiredly counter. “It will do you no good if you can’t even help us break operating costs. You’ll be giving up covered populations if you underhand us. We’ll go elsewhere.”

“30%.”

I try not to huff. He mocks me when I huff. “I’m asking you to take this seriously.”

“I am. 30%.”

“Then there’s no deal.”

“Tell me how those calls to patients are going to go tomorrow telling them they can’t get their procedures done at your hospital.” He raises his eyebrows, daring me to consider it. I have.

“Your 30% won’t guarantee our cash survival for more than two years.”

He twirls the pen again. I try not to watch. Fail.

“Perhaps I don’t need you to survive as an organization for more than two years for _my_ bottom line.”

My headache breaks through the Excedrin. I suspect he takes more joy at playing harder than decency warrants. Because really, no one should be happy to be in this room. 

“42%,” I grit out.

“30.1%.” A smile starts to spread, dimpling his cheek.

My cheap pen cracks and spills ink on my fingers. God, I’m tired. I’ve been up for days. “Play fucking fair, Ben.”

He frowns and looks around him even though we’re utterly alone. “Ben? Who is this Ben?” Dropping his trophy of a pen delicately to the table, he plants his elbows and leans forward, wafting his spicy, masculine scent towards me. He lowers his voice, as if telling a secret. “You won’t get fair here, Scavenger. You’re in the Panic Room.” He grins and squints his eyes, as if thinking. “But I’m feeling generous. 35%. Shall we call it done?”

Knowing the figures, it’s barely enough to maintain for five years. I wish one of the profit sectors had wanted me as their counsel. It would have given me so much more power. “Give me 40,” I all but plead.

He stands, collecting his pen and dropping it into a lined pocket in his coat. I don’t think my coat even has breast pockets. “Merge with Jakku Medical and get some more negotiating power. No small hospital can stay independent in this market.” Casually, he stands and tucks his hands into his pockets, making for a frustrating, but mouthwatering sight. “35% for you.”

“You bloody bastard.”

He winks humorlessly which I sneer at. Pouting, he moves to exit, checking that his suit is perfect (it is) in the mirror fixed to the back of the single oak door, beyond which he’ll resume the identity of Ben, also a bloody bastard. “See you at the gala, Rey. I hope we’re able to pick up where we left off last year.”

The door shuts, leaving me alone with his scent and my sad reflection staring back at me from the mirror. My cheeks are an incriminating pink. Shuddering, I bury my head into my hands and uncross my legs. 

_Scavenger_ , he calls me.

Kylo Ren never gives me what I ask for.

____

But Ben does. At least at night, in my head, when I’m alone with my thoughts.

Google is off limits for what I itch to search for. And not just because my phone and computer are company property. But because my professional career and personal livelihood wouldn’t survive if anyone knew about _this_.

I once asked my one and only ex, Geoff, if he would give action to the thoughts that lived in the darkest part of my mind. Never saying the thing out loud of course, but he’d indulge the request for _rougher_ , _harder_ . Short of misunderstanding that me crying _stop_ didn't mean I actually wanted him to stop, the distance between my bottomless need versus his, and this damned job put an end to it anyway. 

He didn’t want me the way I wanted him to want me.

I roll over in bed and cram a pillow between my thighs.

_See you at the gala, Rey_.

I bury my head into the mattress and remember last year - the way his hand enveloped mine, practically dragging me from my comfortable corner to the ballroom floor as we danced. ( _He_ danced, I flailed.) The way his tux shone magnificently and how imbecilic I felt in my tan wrap gown, underdressed and straight out of graduate school.

How was I supposed to know the annual gala was at a literal estate, a la Manderley?

This company has too much money. 

_Anyway_. His hand, enormous and warm, as he spun us and guided my confused limbs across the crowded dance floor to the tune of a live tux-clad band. As he whispered in my ear, his deep voice sending electric jolts up my spine.

“ _Aren’t you going to congratulate me on winning associate of the year?_ ” He had asked me.

“ _Congratulations, Ben. Your ruthlessness knows no bounds. How does it feel to stand at the podium while the rest of us clap and resent you?_ ”

He laughed, revealing his throat before sending me into another twirl then caging me back into his arms, closer than before.

“ _All’s fair in the Panic Room, Scavenger_.”

“ _Yes, well - well done, then._ ” 

I’ll never forget what he had done after, as I went to de-tangle myself from his hold and make for one of those waiters with the trays of champagne. How he gripped my hand harder, nearly painful, and how his other arm snaked around my waist and pulled me flush against his body.

“ _Aren’t you going to ask me what I want as my prize?_ ”

Even a year later the memory turns my insides to liquid. The bed squeaks when I start to move against the pillow. 

_Aren’t you going to ask me what I want as my prize?_

_Aren’t you going to ask me what I want?_

In my head, the fantasy Ben I’ve created, he wouldn’t have let me run off as I did. He wouldn’t have released me when my face turned red and I spluttered like a prude. In my head he wouldn’t have let me go as I squirmed.

In my head, rewriting last year's gala, the Ben in my shadowed thoughts grips me hard and whispers a single word.

“ _You_.”

And I would say, “ _You can’t_.”

But then he would anyway.

_____

I’m three glasses of champagne deep when they announce me as Associate of the Year.

Immensely grateful Rose convinced me to get the sophisticated designer gown (even if it is a rental), I bewilderedly float to where Snoke holds the glass-etched award aloft. Conscious that I chose the black long-sleeved, floor length gown with a high neck, I’m keenly aware of the completely open back as I ascend the small stage before the band to accept the award.

More than a little lightheaded, I sweep my curled hair aside and smile for the camera, accepting the award to the tune of my colleagues’ applause.

Convinced it was issued in error, I look down at the award.

**ASSOCIATE OF THE YEAR**

**“SCAVENGER”**

**1st Annual Non-profit champion**

Ah. Snoke could at least listed my name. Instead it feels like a consolation prize - cleaning the slate of all the previous winners and their for-profit statuses. I try for my best smile despite the handout. 

Finn is the first to clap me on the back - likely leaving a red handprint in his enthusiasm - before stealing away the award and hoisting it for the crowd of some two hundred to see. 

Handshakes are issued all around, and I smile and offer ‘thanks’ gamely through it all. They seem to run out as the band strikes up a tune and folks grab partners to show their dancing skills - skills I failed to acquire with my lacking pedigree.

I try not to spot him - but Ben stands across the floor, his tux expectedly impeccable, his smile deviant but genuine.

I won. Sort of.

So I smile back.

Later, after I force myself through a couple dances, all with kindly but distracted partners, I make for the comfort of a corner before being intercepted.

“Congratulations, Associate of the Year,” Ben says as he takes my hand.

This time, I let him sweep me to the floor, and let him hold me too close for what’s likely proper.

“It’s a PR scrub for the company. We all know it,” I say, the words a little sore. His hand - his enormous hand - splays against my bare lower back, hot like a brand.

“So it’s my award they need to remedy?” 

“It would be a start.”

“This dress,” he says idly as his fingers trace my spine, “sure inviting for a backstabbing.”

My cheeks heat. “I don’t recall my attire ever preventing you from stabbing me in the back before.”

Chuckling, he says, “You’re never satisfied, are you?”

Before I can stop myself, “No.”

Ben’s eyes slide to mine and for a moment neither of us speak. His lip quirks, and he _knows_. 

Leaning close, he asks, “What would make you satisfied?”

My heart thrashes against my ribs. Close as we are, he must feel it. His hand presses me closer, and amongst the finery and the posturing, I have a thought - a most _dreadful_ thought. 

I could tell him. 

He breaks into a full grin in my extended silence, as if he’s the one who’s won an award. Shivers crawl up my back into his hand, anticipation and desire clashing so intensely I almost feel sick. The sensation - the one I dream of when alone - of being _wanted_ feels so desperately close.

Perhaps - perhaps he _does_ want me? I have so little experience in being wanted, of mere flirting that I fear I’m reading this whole encounter entirely wrong.

Then, his lips are at my ear.

“Tell me what you want as your prize, Rey.”

Not ‘Scavenger’. Rey.

A thrill darts through me, and the intoxicated rational part of my brain blares every alarm. Colleague. Professional event. Career. Mayday. Mayday.

But the shadowed part of my mind is there, right at the forefront, hands extended full and grasping. 

I pull back enough to look at the darkness shadowing his eyes, and my legs tremble. Swallowing, I squint and tilt my head. Seduction has never been my game, but I hope he understands.

By the way he appears to raise his brows as if in question, patient and waiting, I can tell he won’t let me get away with mere hints. He never lets me get away with anything.

“Not… can we… somewhere else?” I mumble at his collar. 

He nods, a victorious fire in his eyes, and grasping my hand pulls me neatly away. Fear of discovery pales in comparison to the way my stomach rocks and swoops. By the slight thinning on the dance floor, I sense folks are turning in for the night, shuffling off to their overnight rooms (we’re not allowed anywhere near a vehicle after the gala) to sleep off the jubilation.

As I’m led through a hallway, up a flight of stairs and into another wing, it strikes me then how well Ben seems to know his way around this place. I’m not exactly sure how much older he is, but I’ve had one year to familiarize myself with Maybe-Manderley while he seems as though he grew up here.

Perhaps he did.

After several minutes of walking, I notice the silence. I cannot hear the band from here, nor the laughing and shouting of our colleagues. Shivering at the stillness, Ben leads me through a door at the end of a hallway, closing it behind and wrapping us in silence.

It’s so dark. I can only hear my harsh breaths and realize for the first time how raw my feet feel in my heels. 

From the corner of the room, a warm yellow light flicks on, illuminating the desk of what appears to be a private library or office, and there, cast in shadow, the man who haunts me like a reoccurring nightmare. Moving from the light, he circles the desk to stand in front of it, leaning backwards and planting his hands on either side of him. He must know the picture he cuts from where he stands some two meters away. Dark. Beguiling.

“There’s a great deal more privacy up here,” he says.

I swallow. “Yes.”

Neither of us move. If I unlock my knees they’ll knock. Can he hear my heart thunder the way I can?

“Rey.”

I can’t swallow this time. “Yes?”

“Your prize.”

“Y-yes.”

He sighs as if inpatient, but the mischievous gleam in his eye tells me he’s just being playful. A finger tap-tap-taps along the oak underside of the desk.

“You have to tell me.” He says.

I’m silent.

“You have to tell me what you want.”

It’s an almost insurmountable ask. My feet, tired and throbbing, stay as though glued to the floor. My shoulders heave and my heart pounds as though I’ve run some great distance and my mouth is utterly dry. Despite being almost completely covered, I’ve never felt so exposed.

And Ben, just leaning there, confident and unbothered by my crisis, waits as if he has all the time in the world.

My first step heralds the second, another and another until I’m right beside him, close enough to rest my chin to his chest. The scent of him is overwhelming this close.

The klaxon’s alarms of my mind blare, but I’m quite lost when it comes to him. My every instinct is shut down, yielding to the part of me I’ve only ever acknowledged when alone.

The alarms quiet, for just a moment. A single moment for me to whisper, despite the empty wing and the empty rooms.

“I-I want you to force me.”

From my peripheral, I see his head incline towards me just a fraction, as if in question.

“I want you to rape me.”

He does not move, does not react to the word. All is still while I wait in absolute silence. Where I thought I might feel a weight being lifted to say the dreaded thing aloud, I feel now only anticipation, heavier than the secret.

Anxiousness slithering up my back, I turn my chin just a touch, to see if I can gauge his reaction.

I wish fervently I hadn’t. 

Ben’s cheek is dimpled, pinched in a way with his pursed lips that betray how strongly he’s trying to contain his laughter. Stumbling back a step, I watch his shoulders buckle as he gives himself over to it, loud and mocking in the stillness of the room.

A realization crashes into my chest. I’ve made the most colossal of miscalculations. I’d let myself believe in my fantasized version of this man, mistaking _him_ for this real one.

Ben laughs for a solid half minute, even pulling free a handkerchief to dab his eye dry. “Hell,” he says, righting himself to stare me in the eye, “most just ask to be spanked.”

Shame. Thick enough to choke on. Sour enough to rankle and turn my insides to prickling awareness. 

My error. It was a fatal one. I had forgotten his voice - how deep and magnetic both in and outside of the Panic Room. His eyes, haunting yet inviting. And his face, odd but far more handsome than mine. Ben does not need to pretend, to fantasize as I have about being desired.

He lives to be wanted.

I live to want. To scavenge.

I wonder if that is why he laughs at me. Because he’s clearly the winner here.

Feeling almost sick, I turn and flee towards the door, grasping the handle and flinging it a fraction open before his hand slams it closed above my head. Grabbing my shoulder, he pivots me until my bare back is up against it.

Startled, I whine and push at his chest for just a moment before he grabs my wrists in one hand and pins me close.

Every feeling within me pauses, wondering, waiting, curious. For a moment I see his eyes darken, and my mouth parts, thinking perhaps… perhaps this is something he’ll give me? Unwilling to think how easily swayed I am, I almost instantly fall into that dark place where I’ll dance with this depraved, hopeful idea.

It’s short lived.

From this close he watches my eyes blur, my neck fall to the side in offering, my body soften against his, and his face cracks, revealing his amusement and me, an idiot, once more.

“My goodness. So you _are_ serious, then.”

Well, ‘fool me twice’ and all that.

Embarrassment surges hot and wild within me. I’ve never felt so wretched and I want to wound him as he did me. Tugging my wrist free, I rear back with every attempt to slap that mocking smile from his face. Unsurprisingly, he catches my forearm with one of those enormous hands.

Tsking, he looks disappointed. “Don’t make a show of it. Be quieter, quicker.”

He slaps me. Not too hard, but enough to sting and shock. 

“Like so,” he says, smug.

My gasp is damning, not entirely of dismay. Grinning, he presents his gorgeous cheek to me, inviting me to try to slap him again.

It shouldn’t have taken me so long to realize, but that cheek and that mocking grin help me understand a solitary awful truth about myself. The single appeal was the thought of being _so_ wanted, _so_ desired, that someone would commit what I asked of Ben. With force, the act makes me as the victim anonymous - blameless for the depravity that took root in my mind.

Instead, he’s just laughing at me. 

I don’t slap that perfect cheek. Maneuvering myself away from the door, I instead shoulder him aside and turn, opening it to permit myself through. It’s a large estate, but I’ll find my way down to my overnight room, and I won’t wipe my growing tears away until I get there. 

From some paces back, I hear the library door open and close again. Heavy footsteps follow me on the luxurious carpet, but after a minute I realize he’s trailing purposefully behind me.

Curiously tugs and I turn a fraction to watch him pull his bow tie free.

“You should run,” he says. “Make it feel more _real_.” He winks.

Whirling back, I continue on my way, instincts telling me hurry.

“I won’t run from you,” I snap.

“No?”

After another wing, one I’m nearly positive we traveled down, I chance another glance. My heart stutters to see him shrugging off his coat and tossing it to a chaise lounge tucked under a darkened window.

Quite near a full panic, I urge myself onward, questioning the direction I took and look back again.

He’s rolling up his shirtsleeves.

A cry nearly escapes me. I look back again.

He’s palming the front of his trousers.

My heart thunders in raw fear, now. I promised I wouldn’t run, but every nerve screams for me to do just that.

With a moment to act, I dash into an adjoining room, a darkened dining hall by the looks of it before I take off in a sprint. He lets me get a hopeful distance away before catching me. An arm wraps around my waist as a foot stomps on the hem of my dress, tearing the bottom third free with an awful, echoing rip.

Screeching, I tumble to the floor - narrowly missing the dining table - and cry out when he lands on top of me. Pushing uselessly at his chest, he slaps me again.

My head snaps and _bounces_ off the floor. 

It’s almost elegant, in a way. Ben has deprived me of the appeal of being wanted, and has instead turned my request into something of a mirror of myself. He won’t let me escape my shame - indeed he seems to want to magnify it enough that I cannot forget that _I_ was the one who asked for this. 

I can’t hear anything over the sudden ringing in my ears. Rearing up, he slaps me again, harder this time - and I blink with shock.

He’s rent me in two. My mind fractures.

_Fight back_ , I hear my own voice plead.

_I don’t want to be slapped again_.

_You won’t want the alternative._

_It hurts._

_It’s going to hurt far worse._

Waring parts of myself in agreement, I yield completely to my fear. With all my might, I cry and lurch upwards, battering against his shoulders in a mighty attempt to be free.

His next slap fractures the two parts of me into a thousand irreparable pieces.

Stunned, I cannot prevent him flipping up the ruined hem of my dress to my hips.

“These are nice.”

My eyes flash open then squeeze shut. Hours ago I had chosen the lacy underwear for _him_. Worse than a smoking gun. That, and the damp evidence of my anticipation from earlier this evening.

_These are nice._

But he doesn’t say it like I imagined. He says the words as if a coworker had shown off a new set of flatware at a team dinner.

_These are nice._

_Fifty percent off on Black Friday._

_No kidding?_

Hooking a thumb under the fabric, his finger drags through me. Ben smiles at what he discovers and my tears leak free.

Could I swallow the words back? Could the universe put me back in bed, alone, where I was meant to stay?

_I want you to force me._

Whispered in his ear, repeated and clarified for his benefit. He won’t let me turn over and just yield the way I want. He’ll ensure I’m fully aware that I’m the one who asked for this terror.

Perhaps it is then - in that moment of realization - the fantasy word becomes a living truth. 

This isn’t what I wanted. 

He tears the “nice” fabric away from my thighs, and - dodging my flailing, battering fists - hikes his shirt out of his trousers and undoes them in a blink. Blunt flesh nudges and seeks the valley of mine. A broad thumb chases tears across my cheeks and I open my eyes to see that pitying smile. His eyes aren’t dark and passionate like the Ben in my head. They’re clinical, aware, and the very same as Kylo’s in the Panic Room.

“Your prize,” he announces.

_No_. “Ben-” I plead.

It ends in a wail, because he’s pushing in and I would have never been ready. Realizing now there was more (there’s always more) he could take from me, he pushes and pushes and pushes and I was wrong to think the fractured pieces of me were the smallest bits he could break me into. It’s an eternity before he’s fully seated, and even then he doesn’t wait for me before he starts moving.

He makes it hurt. Then, even worse, he makes it not hurt - ripping unwilling pleasure from my body with his fingers before making it hurt again. 

“ _Please_.” I beg, weak and overcome. 

“No.”

There might be an entire world outside of us, but I cannot fathom it beyond this torture. Tangled on the floor, I try to bury my head into my shoulder and block everything out, but his fingers find that place again and demand my attention back - forcing me to be present in the minutes that pass. It would be too cruel of him now to force me off that cliff, but his fingers search as if he’s determined I’ll commit the final betrayal with him. A nagging sensation flares until it catches my attention and I blink, stupidly. 

“Don’t - not-not inside…” I plead.

“As if I could in this pathetic body.”

It is laughable, later. That I asked for something inherently - by literal definition, even - unwanted, and ended up not wanting it. What a perfect, disastrous circle. I feel as if a simpleton, and he, the knowing teacher, waiting patiently until I discover my folly. 

I’ve protested so long - years of my own convincing - thinking I know what I want. Convincing my own mind and body of it in those dark hours alone with only myself.

Perhaps that is the root in the problem of fantasies. Perhaps that is the issue of wanting. We cannot know until it is upon us - until we’ve asked for it and we hold it - the malformed and limp thing in our once eager and grasping fingers with a sort of quiet that only disappointment can conjure.

_This is not what I wanted._

_But it is what you asked for. To the word._

_It is, yes._

_It is._

And because of that, because of the thing I ask of him, I cannot accuse him of cruelty - even if the deed he does is cruel.

Groaning, he finishes - contrary to what he claimed - and plants a firm, mocking chaste kiss on my forehead. Then, efficiently, he stands and leaves me on the floor before stepping out of the room and back into the hallway where I fled from him. 

Filled with both relief and horror at the sensation of him leaving my body and the exit of his release between my thighs, I’m still for a minute, breathing and only breathing. The firm plant of his lips on my forehead lingers longer than his slaps. It may even hurt the worst of all. Before giving over to shock and caving in on myself, I silently move to my hands and knees, crawling towards the dining table, grasping for a knife before ridding myself of the ruined hem of my gown. Every effort leaves me panting. 

Gripping the knife in my shaking hand, some part of me I’ve never known eyes the tendons beneath the mottled colors blooming on my wrist, thinking, wondering.

_Unwanted. Unwanted._

A sob tears through me, buckling me in two, and a flicker of movement from my periphery catches my eye. Turning, I regard myself in an antique floor-to-ceiling mirror.

Despite the horror, the depravity I’ve just lived, I don't look all too different. Reds and pinks spread like a watercolor on my checks, jaw, and wrists. 

Dropping the knife, I reach out and touch my reflection, wondering at what point I lost myself. Was it years ago? Alone in bed with my own despicable fantasies? Or was it tonight? The moment I gave the shadowed thoughts my own voice and whispered them in his ear?

_I want you to force me._

It matters little, either way.

He’s made sure there is none of me left.

I grip the edges of the mirror until my whitened knuckles spasm. How deceptively lovely, the thoughts I conjured. How wanted I was in this fantasy. But in the end I suppose my existence was not one borne to be wanted. Not by my parents, not by lovers, and certainly not by him. How utterly devastating, the seductive idea of being wanted. How inevitable, the realization that it was never meant for me.

I rest my head - the one place he kissed - against the mirror and watch it fog for a single breath. Then, with the shell of myself remaining, I throw my head into the glass.

It’s such a clear sound - glass fracturing. Pure, almost, in the way I can’t be anymore. Blood surges in my already ringing ears, pain blooming at my brow to rival the pain he wrought on my body, on my heart, and on my pride. 

I throw myself forward again. Again. Blood trickles into my eyes. 

_Good_ \- I think - _I don’t have to see her anymore_. The unwanted one. I smile and tilt my head back. Perhaps I can go back to before - those quiet moments alone by myself. I can imagine myself wanted again, desirable - not this sad little existence. 

As if the me from before wasn’t pathetic. As if there wasn’t something wrong with me - wanting _those_ things. There’s something still luxuriously wrong with me now, to still want it. The before. At least then I could dream. 

In my dreams I am wanted. Even in the worst way possible. I am wanted.

And it is enough. 

Rearing back to strike again, I practically roar when a pair of hands grasp my arms and haul me back into his chest. Hands flying, I lash out, catching my nails on any available surface to inflict pain so I can return to the glass.

“Stop. Rey, _stop_.” Ben sounds terrified.

_You don’t understand. I have to get rid of her if I want to go back to before. I have to do this._

Flailing, I manage to smash the back of my head into his jaw. His grip tightens and he mutters a curse.

Stars dance from the multiple head blows. Unable to help it - I start laughing. Breathless and feeling a touch mad, I taunt him.

“One day,” I wheeze, “one day I’ll have to discover how to wound you without hurting myself.”

Ben says nothing as he continues to haul me away. I thrash until he grabs me about my jaw, preventing me from head butting him again, but it forces my blood-hindered gaze to the spider’s web fracture in the mirror. The thousand versions of me staring back are all disappointing. _Unwanted_. Instead of surrendering to my own self-pity, I lash out again. But as I once desired, he exceeds my strength and my mind, at every turn. I want to rebel for hours - to show him how I might’ve fought. How I might’ve been valiant and noble (brave even) where my mind was a corrupt minefield. 

But the fight is too much, the energy expended exceeding my resources so I slump into him as he pulls what must be his retrieved coat around my shoulders. 

I want to scream at Ben - Kylo Ren, one and the same - _don’t you dare offer me comfort. Not after that. Never after that._

He does anyway.

Because I cannot win without him taking his share.


End file.
